The (Un)Fettered: General Discussion

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First order of business: Since The Unfettered has a nice clear list of criteria to understand what is necessary to qualify, what are the minimum criteria for The Fettered?

Or to put it another way, consider this passage from The Unfettered:

I'd say that, in order to be The Unfettered, a character needs to be capable of sacrificing absolutely anything in service to his goal, but they don't actually have to do that in-story. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, though, they'd have to sacrifice whatever is necessary to serve their goal that presents itself in order to qualify for this trope. Sacrificing absolutely everything, while it makes for interesting characters, restricts this trope too much; sacrificing everything necessary to his final purpose is enough. Of course, if they never do this, they aren't The Unfettered at all; they just don't have to sacrifice absolutely everything.

In order to be The Fettered, however, it takes more than simply not being The Unfettered. They need to have an uncompromising dedication to a set of ideals or code; if they break this code, it's usually either a sign of Character Development, or desperation, and is never done lightly. Basically, The Fettered is The Unfettered with self-imposed restrictions.

edited 3rd Sep '11 6:39:28 PM by tropetown

Okay, so what if he does explicitly have an absolute refusal to judge one of his Co-Dragons as being "less important" than the other, and therefore to consider him expendable if he is given an ultimatum of letting only one of them live, but otherwise he would come across as The Unfettered?

edited 3rd Sep '11 6:39:04 PM by MarqFJA

It would depend on when this happened in-story: if it's in the beginning or middle, then either this character is not The Unfettered, or his Co-Dragons figure into his final goal somehow. If it's in the end, similar to what I said with The Fettered example, it might be a sign of a Heel Realization, My God, What Have I Done?, or a desperate attempt to rein himself in after trying to avoid more Pyrrhic Villainy. He would still be The Unfettered, but one nearing the end of his rope; if he is still alive soon after this point, then he won't be The Unfettered any longer.

edited 3rd Sep '11 6:47:12 PM by tropetown

Okay, what about a hypothetical protagonist named Alex who has so far proved his Unfettered credentials, and has a harem made up of Alice, Betty, Claire, Diana and Emily paying Undying Loyalty to him; then, at some point mid-story he is presented with a Sadistic Choice by his archenemy Brutus to choose which one of them should live (with absolutely zero room for Taking a Third Option), and Alex unhestitantly makes it clear to both his enemy and his girls that he already has his priorities straight (i.e. "I'm going to choose Betty, the one I consider the most important to me, even though I would rather save all of them."), but an outside event/third-party intervention that nobody involved (i.e. Alex, Brutus, and Alice through Emily) had ever expected interrupts and results in Alex not having to go through with sacrificing Alice and Co. for Betty's sake after all.

edited 3rd Sep '11 7:08:55 PM by MarqFJA

Yes, he is definitely The Unfettered; like I said before, he doesn't actually have to go through with it, but he does need to be capable of it. In that example, Alex had made it quite clear that he would be capable of sacrificing everyone for Betty's sake, and had that event not intervened, I'm assuming he would have done it.

Incidentally, if Brutus really wanted to be a dick, after presenting Alex with the Sadistic Choice, he should have killed Betty and let the others live. It would have completely screwed Alex up, and might have gotten the other girls to leave his side, though Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him? will look like a smart question to ask at that point, since getting The Unfettered pissed off at you is a serious Villain Ball moment.

Like I said, no room for Taking a Third Option. Everything that Alex could think in that situation, Brutus is Crazy-Prepared enough to counter, and Alex knows it. Oh, and Brutus kinda believes that Alex has to hit his limit(s) at some point.

Okay, now that we have that dealt with... What would be a good example of a Villainous character who barely counts as The Fettered, and is not "sympathetic" enough to count as a Noble Demon Anti-Villain?

edited 3rd Sep '11 8:05:54 PM by MarqFJA

Any Knight Templar could automatically count as The Fettered, since they're unquestionably devoted to a personal code to the point of blinding themselves to the evil they're committing as a result. A villainous Übermensch could be either The Fettered or The Unfettered (I personally find unfettered portrayals more interesting), and any villainous examples of The Fundamentalist would also count.

edited 3rd Sep '11 8:44:16 PM by tropetown

Right. Do Evil Virtues like Love or Responsibility automatically count as Fetters, or do they have to be played in a certain way to be so?

edited 3rd Sep '11 8:54:00 PM by MarqFJA

Nah, only if the villain is devoted to the idea of Love or responsibility, and has a code set up revolving around these qualities. Merely having limits doesn't make someone The Fettered; their limits should be religiously followed to the point where breaking this code for any reason would be unthinkable. Batman, for example, has Thou Shall Not Kill and Does Not Like Guns as two of his personal rules; if he breaks these rules, it's always a big deal. On the other hand, a character who simply doesn't like killing or guns, but is willing to make concessions in certain situations without feeling as though he has violated some fundamental rule he's given himself would not be.

Any Principles Zealot would work out well as a fettered villain. As for how I'd design the character (as far as backstory and motivation was concerned) well, that would depend on the setting .

Ummm...what is the difference between a Principles Zealot and The Fettered? Looks like trope overlap.

I believe Principles Zealot is a subtrope - there are enough examples of it that it can stand on its own and get its own page, but not all that are The Fettered would qualify.

The inherent duality between the fettered and unfettered is a matter of ends vs. means. Case in point, crime figthing; a fettered character like Batman or Superman will fetter themsselves by refusing to resort to the means of killing people, while an unfettered crime fighter like Rorschach or the Punisher will kill without a pang of guilt or a moments hesitation if it will further their goals.

Here's a new hypothetical scenario: Albert's #1 personal goal, the one which he is willing to sacrifice all other goals for and will always refuse to violate, is "protecting Bethany's life and happiness". Among said secondary goals is goal #2: "protecting my True Companions' lives", with said True Companions being incidentally Bethany's True Companions as well.

Now technically speaking, Albert can rank each of the aforementioned True Companions by their personal "importance" to him and Bethany, and thus their "expendability" if he can't protect them all. However, it turns out that, due to traumatic tragedies in her Dark and Troubled Past, Bethany's happiness is uncomprimisingly dependent on maintaining all of said True Companions' lives; the death of any of them, let alone all of them, would trigger a Heroic BSoD in her that she stands a good chance of not recovering from ever, if not outright kill her via psycho-emotional shock-induced cardiac arrest/brain death. Thus, in order to achieve his #1 goal, he also needs to maintain goal #2 without prioritizing between the people to whom said goal applies to.

So, in light of the passage quoted in the OP, is Albert The Unfettered or not?

edited 27th Jan '12 10:52:08 AM by MarqFJA

I would say no, he's not. His second goal both supports and conflicts with his first one — he would be stymied if he was faced with a situation where he had to choose between protecting Ann and and protecting Dave. He would have to make a priority-based decision. And what on earth would he do if he had to choose between protecting Bethany from one danger and protecting all the True Companions from another? His goals would conflict and he'd have to prioritize.

edited 27th Jan '12 11:06:21 AM by Madrugada